What Was That About?
by Be Boring
Summary: Short Story: Ron discovers a terrible secret. Much more interesting than it sounds, so just read it! Oh, and review


Ron Weasley sat down dejectedly on a bench outside Percy's office. Why did he have to be here? Just because Fred and George had snuck a bunch of Dad's junk down to the village and placed it all in an auction that was going on the day, didn't mean he had to get punished too. He'd had nothing to do with it, but of course Mrs. Weasley didn't believe that. It seemed that whatever his obnoxious twin brothers did, Ron was immediately blamed for too. It really hadn't been such a big deal, the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office had caught wind of what they were doing before anything bad happened. 

Now he was sitting in the vast hallways of the Ministry of Magic, doomed to be spending the day following Percy around or just staying out of his way. Fred and George were forced to go along with Mr. Weasley, but Ron knew he himself had gotten the worse half of the deal. He hadn't even done anything, and he was made to stay with _Percy_ of all people. They may as well just have a wand to his head and said "Avada Kedrava" and gotten it over with. This was just ridiculous. Was there any relief. Fortunately enough for him, there was.

"Ron? What are you doing here?"

Ron looked up at the sound of the familiar voice, and smiled at the bright face of Penelope Clearwater. Although he could never understand why she was dating his brother, he found nothing wrong with her. She was actually very sweet, and seemed to understand the differences between him and his older brother. 

"I'm being punished," he muttered angrily.

"For what? I know _you_ would never do anything wrong!" she teased. Ron rolled his eyes at her.

"Well, this time I actually didn't do anything! It was all Fred and George."

Penny shot a quick glance at the closed door to Percy's office. "Do you think he'll come out of there for a while?"

Ron chanced a look over his shoulder at the doorway. "I don't think so. He said he'd be out soon, but 'soon' for Percy means a couple days. If it was left up to him to take care of me full time, I'd starve to death before he remembered to feed me!"

Penny let out a mischievous smile that made Ron wonder why she hadn't gotten together with Fred or George. She certainly was a better match for them. "What would you say if I took you to my office? I think you'll find it interesting, particularly the bathroom."

Ron couldn't have been more confused, but he followed along behind her gratefully anyway. Well, she hadn't been kidding, her office certainly was interesting. There were paintings all over the walls of different magical creatures (Percy had once mentioned Penny's love of animals) that were moving around contentedly in their frames, occasionally wondering over to another painting to try the grass there. There were a lot of unicorns, he noticed, and a couple of the baby unicorns were playing. This was definitely a girl's office, but it didn't bother him a bit. It was actually kind of pretty. 

Penny gestured to the open door behind him. "Could you shut that? You wouldn't believe how many people in this place are Peeping Toms."

Ron stepped over to the door and was just about to swing it shut when he looked out into the corridor and saw the Malfoys. Luckily, Draco wasn't with them, but Lucius and Narcissa were bad enough. If either one of them saw a Weasley here, Ron would be for it with his father. He was sure Lucius would go straight to him saying "First you let them run around like wild animals at home, then they're running around at the Ministry! Of course, I can't blame you. You've got too many to keep track of." That slimy git probably would say something very similar to that, but it would be nothing compared to what his father would say later.

Shutting the door quickly, Ron stepped back inside the office. It was only when he turned around and took a closer look that wasn't aimed at the paintings that he realized the room was filled with filing cabinets. There were cabinets that came up out of the ground even because there wasn't enough room in the tiny office for all of them. Penny smiled at his amazed look.

"Amazing, isn't it? It's magically controlled too. I had just been about to tell Percy about my new position here, but I guess you get to find out first. I'm head of the Magical Lineage Department. That means I have a bunch of family trees in here. They're only direct of course, no aunts and uncles, just parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. Then again, Muggle-born witches or wizards get a file to themselves since these files don't include Muggle families."

Ron was still gaping open-mouthed at the rows of cabinets. "What do you mean by magically controlled?"

She smiled at the expression on his face. "Just say a name, and you get their family history. Remember, it's only direct lineage. It's quite the treat to do it from the bathroom."

"Bathroom?"

Now she was positively glowing. "They were refurnishing this room when I got the position, so they let me decide how I wanted my bathroom to be designed. Since I really enjoyed the prefect bathroom at Hogwarts, I had it designed after that. The bathtub is a miniature version of the prefect's bathtub in Hogwarts. If you leave the bathroom door open, you can look at files from in there. It's rather comfortable." She looked at the calendar on her desk in shock. "Oh no! It's July 30, I have a meeting in five minutes!" Grabbing her cloak of the desk chair, she was out the door before Ron could say "Bugger!"

July 30. It was the day before Harry's birthday, and he had nearly forgotten all about it! Of course, with Voldemort on the loose again Ron wasn't even allowed to write letters to Harry. Still, he had been given permission to send Harry a birthday present, but he had nothing to give him! Suddenly an idea sprouted in his mind. Harry knew nothing about his family history, right? Well, the information was all right here! Maybe he would take Penny's advice and do his searching in the bathroom.

Wow. That was all he could think of when he opened the bathroom door. This was stunning! The marbled walls glistened at him, the chandelier gave off brilliant light, and there had never been a more inviting bathtub than that. There were several taps all around it, which he decided at once to experiment with. Different kinds of bubbles and foams popped out of each one, each with their own unique fragrance. Leaving the bathroom door wide open, he stripped down and hopped in. He couldn't even see his hands when they were right below the surface of the water because the foam and bubbles were so thick.

Well, now was as good a time as any. Although he wanted to get Harry his family lineage for his birthday, he had some snooping he wanted to get done first. "Lucius Malfoy!" he called into the other room. It wasn't even a second later that a file came rushing through the open door , and he snatched it out of the air before it could land in the water and get wet. There weren't any names in here he really recognized, but there was one that was missing. He had wanted to find out if Lucius had any more children that would be soon haunting the halls of Hogwarts, but according to the file, Lucius didn't have any children! What was up with that?

"James Potter," he said, and no sooner had the words come out of his mouth than the file in his hands returned to the other room and James's file came in. He figured that there was no point worrying himself about the other file, it was probably just a mistake. He opened James's file and looked up at the names. There weren't any he recognized here either, but he figured Harry would happy enough just to know the names. Then something shocking hit him. There were _two_ names beneath his. One was Harry Potter, but the other one was... Ron nearly passed out, but instead he slapped himself in the face and took another look at the file. No, it was still there. Draco Malfoy.

"Narcissa Malfoy," he almost whispered, letting the file leave his hands just to have it replaced with Mrs. Malfoy's. This couldn't be right, there had to be a mistake. He opened the file with his breath caught in his throat, and nearly passed out when he saw Draco's name under hers. Draco wasn't adopted, James Potter and Narcissa Malfoy had gotten together once! 

Suddenly, the door was thrown open and to the office and Narcissa Malfoy stalked into the room. Ron was so surprised to see her that he toppled over backwards. He came up hiccoughing purple bubbles, but Mrs. Malfoy didn't appear to notice. Her eyes were on the file in Ron's hand. She apparently knew what he'd been doing.

"_Accio!_" she cried, ripping the file from Ron's fingers. He didn't have any time to protest, she had already pointed her wand at him. "_Obliviate!_" she cried. Ron was shoved down to the bottom of the tub again, and when he came up his hiccoughs were a combination of purple and gold bubbles. His eyes widened at seeing Mrs. Malfoy there, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what had happened. Before he could ask questions, she walked out.

Ron climbed out of the tub and toweled himself off. "What was that about?" he grumbled.


End file.
